I would like to start off by congratulating both Google and General Electric for making the 2009 list of the worlds most ethical companies!
Google and General Electric announced recently that they will be working together on technology and policy initiatives to promote the development of additional capacity in the electricity grid. This includes “smart grid” technologies, plug-in hybrids, and managing energy more efficiently. Their goal was stated “to make renewable energy more accessible and useful”. Google and G.E. are also discussing ways to encourage technologies like plug-in hybrids to be used on a larger scale, and to accelerate the development and application of geothermal energy.
Prior to their collaboration, both companies were already following individual clean energy initiatives.
Google has said they would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to investigate alternative energy sources. “We see technologies we think can mature into very capable industries that can generate electricity cheaper than coal,” said Larry Page, a Google founder and president of products, “and we don’t see people talking about that as much as we would like.”
Pictured: Solar-panel-covered rooftops of Google, Inc.’s “Googleplex”
Sergey Brin, Google’s other founder and president of technology, said “the effort was motivated in part by the company’s frustrating search for clean, cheap energy alternatives.”
As for General Electric, they developed an environmentally focused program called Ecomagination! G.E. sets aside an annual budget of an amazing $1.4 billion for research and development of clean energy projects. And with the development of “smart grid” technology, you will not have to live next to a clean energy source to get power from it!
